Blue Angels and Maine Angels

We scoured the Charts looking for a good spot to wait for the remnants of Tropical Storm Hanna to hit us. Captain Tom found a nice spot near Snow Island, Quahog Bay (near Harpswell). I put 150 feet of anchor chain out in 10 feet low water and chafe gear was wrapped around the snubber line anywhere it could rub. A fellow Rotarian gave me a section of old fire hose which really worked great. It turned out to be nothing with a lot of rain and winds under 20 knots which is hardly blowing at all.

We stayed put for 4 days and all kayaked under sunny skies and watched young ospreys learn to fish. There is an air force base just north of where we were anchored and the Blue Angel fighter jets were practicing over our boat too. There was an air show and we had front row seats.

One of the locals rowed out in a sturdy boat just to float, watch the jets and to talk. She has lived on this cove most of her life and was a fisherman by trade. I think if I called her a fisherwoman, she would have taken offense. She shared where all the eagle and osprey nests were and welcomed us to explore her little cove complete with a reversing fall. We mentioned that we had eaten our fill of lobster while in Maine, but missed the ability to buy fish in the local stores or from the lobstermen. She agreed that most of the watermen focus solely on lobsters and much of the fish is flash frozen and shipped away. She rowed away after the Blue Angels were done dancing in the skies and Kim baked two pizzas in the gas oven for dinner.

The very next morning, she appeared through the rain and fog in her fishing skiff bearing a 25 inch long, freshly caught, bled, and gutted Bluefish as a gift. It was great and could not have been any fresher. We had plans to have Emily write a thank you note to the Maine Angel and go over and pin it on her dock the next day, when she and her husband passed by on the way to a picnic. We waved them aboard, gave them a tour of the mighty Emily Grace and we all shared coffee and cheesecake that we had picked up in Boothbay. They were very nice and really spent considerable time ogling in my engine room.

Next stops include Portland, Maine, Portsmouth, NH, Gloucester, Salem, Boston and Plymouth, Mass before we head to Cape Cod.

We will miss Maine, but the lobster pots will not be missed. I don’t think that the autopilot has been on continuously for more than ½ mile in all of Maine before I had to dodge the next pot buoy. We’ve put about 700 miles under the keel since leaving the dock in Connecticut and that number would have been much lower if we could have gone in a straight line. And finding swinging room to anchor between the buoys has been a challenge. However, dear reader, after anchoring, it is possible to attach a buoy to the tender cleat and drag it and its pot several hundred yards…don’t ask me how I know.

Tom